The ability to manufacture electronic circuitry with increasingly fine features has become important for many electronic devices. Increasing the resolution of electronic circuitry typically enables a reduction in the total size of the circuitry. Fine resolution circuitry is generally produced based on non-digital technologies, such as photolithography, micro-contact printing, and vapor deposition, all of which involve the use of hard tooling in some form.
For rapid prototyping, custom circuitry, or short run manufacturing, these non-digital approaches typically become too expensive and therefore impractical. These customized applications would benefit from a digital methodology that allows for rapid modifications of designs. However, existing digital methods generally fail to produce feature sizes smaller than 50–70 micrometers.